Esi Edugyan (Alana Paterson)

Esi Edugyan will executive produce a limited TV series based on her Giller Prize–winning novel, Washington Black (Patrick Crean Editions), for 20th Century Fox, Variety reports. Rights to adapt the epic adventure novel were purchased at auction by Twentieth Television in conjunction with Anthony Hemingway Productions, The Gotham Group, and Sterling K. Brown’s Indian Meadow Productions.

Anthony Hemingway – who has helmed episodes of Shameless, American Crime Story, and Orange Is The New Black – will direct and executive produce. And this will be the first production project for Brown, the star of This Is Us and Black Panther.

Washington Black follows an 11-year-old boy who escapes a sugar plantation in Barbados via hot-air balloon and embarks on an international journey. The novel was a contender for 2018’s major literary prizes, including the Rogers Writers Trust Fiction Prize, Carnegie Medal, and the Booker Prize.